Poll: Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis are Pennsylvania’s picks in 2024

President Joe Biden plays up his Pennsylvania roots, but Keystone State voters prefer two Republicans over him in the upcoming 2024 race.

According to a new survey from the nonpartisan Commonwealth Foundation, Keystone State voters would rather see Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis in the White House instead of a second Biden term.

The Common Ground in the Commonwealth poll contends “Trump is leading the field of individuals respondents would like to see run for President, with Biden leading among Democrats, narrowly outpacing Gov. Josh Shapiro.”

Trump is the preference of 34% of respondents, giving him a strong plurality advantage. Meanwhile, 26% of survey participants pick DeSantis, with Biden close behind with 24%. Shapiro is the choice of 1 in 5 of those polled, with former Vice President Mike Pence and current Vice President Kamala Harris drawing 18% support.

The survey of 600 registered Pennsylvania voters was in the field from March 24 to March 29, with a margin of error of +/- 4 percentage points.

The poll was conducted before a recent DeSantis trip to the Keystone State. The Governor addressed Republicans at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference in Harrisburg, offering largely familiar remarks in a speech that was well-received by the GOP faithful.

In recent weeks, DeSantis has played up his roots in the Rust Belt regions of Pennsylvania and neighboring Ohio as being key to surviving the left-wing crucibles of Yale and Harvard Law School.

During a recent appearance with Mark Levin on the Fox News Channel, DeSantis explained how the region’s values formed him and buoyed his innate sense of conservatism.

“My father’s from western Pennsylvania, my mother’s from Northeastern Ohio. So that is like steel country. That is like blue-collar salt of the earth and, as you know, Mark, Florida’s very eclectic. People kind of come from all over, we do have a culture and so I grew up in that culture, but really it was kind of those Rust Belt values that raised me.”

He offered a similar reminiscence in his best-selling The Courage to be Free.

“I was geographically raised in Tampa Bay,” DeSantis writes, “but culturally my upbringing reflected the working-class communities in western Pennsylvania and northeast Ohio — from weekly church attendance to the expectation that one would earn his keep. This made me God-fearing, hard-working and America-loving.”

Despite DeSantis playing up his Pennsylvania connections and the competitive General Election polling from the Commonwealth Foundation, the most recent poll of GOP Primary preferences suggests he has ground to make up. In a March Public Policy Polling survey, 49% of respondents say they back Trump, with 31% saying they prefer the Florida Governor.